Everyone Was Obsessed With Me After I Became the Youngest Princess Favourite - Chapter 245

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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“I’ve had rather exceptional horsemanship skills since childhood!”
“No, that’s not what I meant….”
Duke Elrad shook his head in bewilderment, and the Grand Duke asked.
“Duke, what brings you here again…. My dear, what on earth has happened?”
Instead of answering, the Grand Duchess looked at the Duke with an awkward smile.
The Duke opened his mouth, recalling what had transpired at the Imperial Palace moments before.
* * *
“Serphin! You should be grateful that you’ve lived a life of comfort and luxury as my daughter, yet you dare plot treason? I will never forgive you!”
The Emperor, seeing Duke Elrad and the Lexion Knights who had come to his rescue, forgot his fear and wore an expression of triumphant confidence.
He was certain they would dispatch the Imperial Knight Order and bring Serphin to her knees.
However, the Imperial Knight Order, controlled by the Demon Worshipper Imperial Princess, showed no fear of death, and the battle between the two knight orders unfolded far more fiercely than anticipated.
As the time to subdue Serphin stretched on, the Emperor, who had been cowering behind the Duke, began to inch backward.
The Emperor let out a strangled cry, suddenly clutching at his throat and gasping.
Serphin, her face contorted with malice, watched the Emperor gasping for breath without blinking once.
The Emperor’s trembling body stiffened in an instant, then went limp.
His death was too pathetic and inglorious for one who ruled an empire, and in that moment of stunned silence, Serphin’s gaze turned toward Duke Elrad.
As she raised her hand with a smirk, clearly intent on severing his life as well, it happened.
“Aaaahhh!”
A shuriken suddenly flew from somewhere and pierced Serphin’s hand.
The Duke, who had been preparing a counterattack, saw the Imperial Princess clutching her hand and crying out, and he turned his head in shock, his expression going blank.
“…Stella?”
The one wielding a sword with long pink hair flowing was unmistakably the Grand Duchess.
Worried about her dear friend who had gone to the Imperial Palace, she had been lingering outside the estate when she encountered Bianca arriving at the Marquis’s Residence and learned of the Imperial Princess’s treason. She had rushed straight into the Imperial Palace.
She had anticipated the situation would be grave, but the moment she saw the Imperial Princess attempting to kill Duke Elrad after the Emperor, her hand moved of its own accord.
However, seeing the Duke stare at her with startled eyes, she felt oddly embarrassed.
“Don’t look at me like that. The Imperial Princess employed her filthy schemes to make our Adriana cry, so I came to deal with her myself.”
And incidentally, to save you too.
The way she added this grumbling remark was exactly like the Late Marquis Diapel.
Duke Elrad nearly burst out laughing, forgetting the situation entirely.
But his composure quickly returned, and together they stood back-to-back, facing Serphin and the Imperial Knight Order.
When the Lexion Knights of House Elrad and the Magic Swordsmen Corps of Bellus Duchy joined forces, even the fearless Imperial Knight Order could not overcome the difference in skill.
Seeing her allies cut down one after another, Serphin, determined to kill at least Grand Duchess Bellus instead of Duke Elrad, glared at her, pulled out another shuriken, and raised her hand high once more.
But in that very instant, a cry of agony tore from Serphin’s lips.
The few remaining Imperial Knights collapsed to the ground like puppets with their strings cut.
The Duke and Grand Duchess did not know the reason, but it was because Setikaael had withdrawn his power.
Duke Elrad ordered his knights to bind Serphin, then commanded in a cold voice.
“Report this news to His Highness Nicholas at once. And send soldiers to surround the Empress’s Palace and House Fayerunt.”
With the Emperor dead and the Imperial Princesses, save Serphin, having rarely left the Separate Palace until now, Nicholas was the only member of the Imperial Family capable of handling this matter.
Though unlikely, he issued a bold order to seal off the locations in case the Empress and House Fayerunt were implicated in the treason.
In truth, as both the Minister of Military Affairs and a witness to the assassination, the Duke should have remained to assist Nicholas with the aftermath, but he left the Imperial Palace immediately.
When Serphin suddenly lost her strength, it became clear that something had happened. Only after hearing the Grand Duchess say they should check the Black Forest did I learn that Diana had gone to face the Demon in a final confrontation.
* * *
Raezl, who had heard about the events at the Imperial Palace from Duke Elrad, focused on the part about the Imperial Princess losing her strength and spoke.
“It seems the Demon has vanished, and the Imperial Princess, being a Demon Worshipper, has lost her power as well. Or perhaps the Demon withdrew her power midway.”
At those words, the Grand Duchess’s eyes widened.
“The Demon has vanished? But then why….”
Why was the Black Forest still engulfed in such raging flames?
She asked with a sense of dread.
“Adriana isn’t still in the forest, is she?”
Duke Elrad, who had been worried about Diana, was also furrowing his brow in concentration.
“Oh, Duke. Your eldest son has also entered the Black Forest. None of them have come out yet.”
Grand Duke Bellus suddenly appeared and mentioned Lucio, who had rushed into the forest without a chance to stop him.
The startled Duke was about to say something when the surroundings suddenly erupted in commotion.
Turning my head urgently toward the noise.
“The Saint has arrived!”
“Lia!”
“Crown Princess Bellus!”
From within the forest, sacred flames parted left and right, and through the opened path, Lia emerged, supported by Diana and Lucio on either side.
* * *
I smiled faintly as I watched my family approaching with anxious expressions, calling out my name.
Just moments before, after seeing Master off, Diana waited until I stopped crying, then began the final purification work with the Priestesses who had come with her.
Seeing this, I too quickly gathered myself and completely sealed the entrance to the Demon Realm.
After accomplishing even that, my energy drained away so completely that I could barely move a single finger.
As we made our way out of the forest, Lucio offered to carry me several times, but I firmly refused.
I didn’t want my family waiting outside to misunderstand that I was injured in any way.
‘Besides, it was a bit embarrassing to be seen like that….’
But my plan to reassure my family fell apart in an unexpected way.
I had forgotten about my own appearance.
The fact that I was wearing a wedding dress was already absurd, but with blood and dust dried black onto the pure white fabric, anyone looking at me would think I had endured every possible hardship.
Flustered, I tried to wave my hands urgently at my alarmed family and make excuses.
But suddenly my vision blurred and my body swayed.
It seemed the tension had released and dizziness was setting in.
Even I could tell that my mind and body were quite exhausted, so it wasn’t surprising.
Seeing my family rushing toward me in alarm, I thought that if I had known this would happen, I should have just let Lucio carry me, and I slowly closed my eyes.
* * *
“Didn’t you say all the demonic energy had been purified? So why isn’t she waking up?”
Grand Duke Bellus asked with an anxious expression.
Two days had already passed since my daughter collapsed the moment we left the Black Forest, yet she showed no signs of waking.
The instant Lia collapsed, I saw Raezl pouring his holy power into her, and I instinctively knew this wasn’t simply a matter of accumulated fatigue.
And indeed. While Lia had remained in the Black Forest, she had absorbed far more demonic energy than anticipated, and in closing the entrance to the Demon Realm, she had been directly exposed to demonic energy, requiring purification.
Yet it was strange that she still hadn’t regained consciousness despite all this.
Diana had poured her holy power into Lia again the moment her body recovered from rest.
A Saint with holy power strong enough to annihilate Demons had stepped forward, yet Lia remained unconscious.
The Previous Marquis, who had collapsed while guarding the Marquis’s Residence alone and now faced his granddaughter in such a state, pressed Raezl urgently out of desperation.
“Please, tell me honestly. Why won’t our Lia wake up?”
“That is….”
As Raezl hesitated to answer, Diana, who had been watching, stepped forward instead.
“My sister’s soul is still recovering.”
Raezl, flustered, called out “Saint,” but Diana shook her head.
“It’s better to understand the situation than to worry without knowing anything.”
At that moment, the Grand Duchess, who had been wiping Lia’s face, raised her eyebrows and asked.
“What do you mean by that? Her soul is recovering?”
Diana did not hesitate and laid bare all the facts.
How Lia’s soul had been bound to the Demon’s soul stone all this time, and how the soul, which had cracked whenever she suffered and grieved, had finally shattered into fragments.
And how, before the soul could even fully recover, the Demon was annihilated, so now the fragmented soul was healing as it merged with her body.
‘My sister probably tried to endure it alone without telling the family….’
Diana believed everyone needed to know how much pain and suffering Lia had endured.
She did not mention her concern about a mana runaway occurring because Lia’s heart had absorbed all of the Demon’s mana at the end.
Whether it was because of the snow flower on the table beside the bed, brought at some point without anyone noticing, or because Lucio, who was no different from a living snow flower, held Lia’s hand without blinking an eye, there were fortunately no signs of a runaway whatsoever.
When everyone had let out a sigh of relief at Diana’s words that Lia would safely wake once her soul recovered, it was then that Lucio asked without taking his gaze from Lia.
Lucio, without taking his eyes from Lia, asked.
“How exactly does that soul recovery happen?”
“That is….”
Diana, who had answered without hesitation until now, wore a troubled expression before speaking carefully.
“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure either. My sister’s soul might heal by erasing all the painful memories that tormented her…. If that happens, her memories might be reconstructed as if she had lived in a world where the Demon never existed.”
In any case, warm and loving memories would replace those of abuse, violence, and terror, healing the wounds of the fragmented soul and filling all its voids.
Though uncertain how long it would take, Lucio found some comfort in knowing that at least the process of soul recovery would not be painful.
Certainly, when he had seen Lia asleep before, she had frowned, whimpered, shed tears, and flinched in her sleep.
It was obvious to anyone watching that she was having nightmares.
But now, Lia’s face, lying gracefully on the bed, appeared clear and peaceful.
Lucio, grateful that Lia was no longer suffering, suddenly paused and asked.
“Could it be…that she might never open her eyes again…?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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